“So kind, also, was the son of David to all of us.  Now, then, go wash thy face, and take comfort and courage.”

“Bram, leave me not.”

“There is Neil.  We have been companions; and his father and his mother are old, and need me.”

“Also, I need thee.  All the time they will make me to feel how wicked is Katherine Van Heemskirk!”

At this moment the family returned from the morning service, and Bram rather defiantly drew his sister to his side.  Joris was not with them.  He had stopped at the “King’s Arms” to ask if Captain Hyde was still alive; for, in spite of everything, the young man’s heroic cheerfulness in the agony of the preceding night had deeply touched Joris.  No one spoke to Katherine; even her mother was annoyed and humiliated at the social ordeal through which they had just passed, and she thought it only reasonable that the erring girl should be made to share the trial.  Batavius, however, had much curiosity; and his first thought on seeing Bram at home was, “Neil is of course dead, and Bram is of no further use;” and, in the tone of one personally injured by such a fatality, he ejaculated,—­

“So it is the end, then.  On the sabbath day Neil has gone.  If it should be the sabbath day in the other world,—­which is likely,—­it will be the worse for Neil.”

“What mean you?”

“Is not Neil Semple dead?”

“No.  I think, also, that he will live.”

“I am glad.  It is good for Katherine.”

“I see it not.”

“Well, then, if he dies, is it not Katherine’s fault?”

“Heaven and hell!  No!  Katherine is not to blame.”

“All respectable and moral people will say so.”

“Better for them not to say so.  If I hear of it, then I will make them say it to my face.”

“Then?  Well?”

“I have my hands and my feet, for them—­to punish their tongues.”

“And the kirk session?”

“Oh, I care not!  What is the kirk session to my little Katherine?  Batavius, if man or woman you hear speak ill of her, tell them it is not Katherine, but Bram Van Heemskirk, that will bring everything back to them.  What words I say, them I mean.”

“Oh, yes!  And mind this, Bram, the words I think, them words I will say, whether you like them or like them not.”

“As the wind you bluster,—­on the sabbath day, also.  In your ship I sail not, Batavius.  Good-by, then, Katherine; and if any are unkind to thee, tell thy brother.  For thou art right, and not wrong.”

But, though Bram bravely championed his sister, he could not protect her from those wicked innuendoes disseminated for the gratification of the virtuous; nor from those malicious regrets of very good people over rumours which they declare to “be incredible,” and yet which, nevertheless, they “unfortunately believe to be too true.”  The Scotch have a national precept which says, “Never speak ill of the dead.”  Would it not be much better